Procurement: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I'm left wondering after the experiences of the past week, whether the growing role of procurement in PR pitching is good or bad thing. Back in October/November when we pitched and won a major European account, the experience with procurement was overwhelmingly positive. The client in question got the balance between involvement and interference just right. Minimal interference during the pitch process but major involvement through the contract and budget negotiation as you would expect.

But just recently I've had the opposite experience. Procurement interfering in the pitch process to the extent that it created barriers that were ultimately insurmountable. The classic symptom of this process is the refusal to grant access to the prospect before the pitch. Now how the heck are you supposed to really understand the needs of the prospect unless you can get in front of them and ask them intelligent questions?

We all appreciate the need to 'protect' the prospect from the attentions of large numbers of pitching agencies. After all , time is short for every one. So why invite six, seven or even eight agencies into the final round? When a pitch goes through an initial RFI before arriving at a short list for the final presentation, surely this short list should be just that -- short? And if its three or four agencies, then surely it's not too much to ask to take an hour of the prospect's time to provide deeper insight into the needs of the business?

The argument has to be that if the agency invests in the pitch, then surely so must the prospect? After all, the end result will be higher calibre pitches and the right agency then being appointed. No one expects to win every pitch, but being given the best possible chance by having access to the prospect is surely not too much expect? So procurement, while I admire your ability to save money and get the best deal, please don't do so at the expense of a proper, unencumbered pitching process.

And don't get me started on the subject of e-auctions......

A New Day, A New Company -- 33 Digital

Well, the end of the day that saw our incubated baby finally get its official launch. 33 Digital, Hotwire's new digital PR and marketing business was launched to a not so unsuspecting public this morning. The guys led by Drew have had an amazing day full of Twitter, Blogs, Flowers (thanks Diffusion), LinkedIn and probably Facebook.

It's an exciting proposition - one that demonstrates Hotwire's innovative DNA and which will be a growth driver for our business during the coming year. Yes, I am being the company man on this because I've seen what these guys can deliver. And I am also pretty proud that Hotwire has the balls to launch a company during the downturn. But then what do you expect of Ms Syltevik?

So good luck to Drew and the team. Watch this space for good news to come out of our new baby and for reports on its growth during the coming weeks and months.

Is This A Cause For Optimism?

Perhaps it’s the fall-out of the G20 summit or the early Spring effect at the end of a long dark (and cold) winter but there seems to be a faint glow of optimism spreading around at the moment. The latest IPA Bellwether survey makes for slightly better reading than previous reports with the rate of decline in marketing budgets appearing to slow. According to the report, the data supports the view that the bottom of the market has been reached. This is a significant turning point which every agency must welcome. But as the author of the report, Chris Williamson warned, it will be sometime yet before we see a full recovery.

Here at Hotwire Towers we have seen both sides of the recession with a steady stream of exciting account wins matched with some expected reductions in client budgets. Our view however has always been that the recession is a time of opportunity. After all the agency was launched in the tech downturn and grew rapidly. While 2008 and 2009 might not be a period of rapid growth, we are seeing increased interest from clients for cost-effective, highly transparent PR services.

Our view is that the recovery, when it does arrive, will not herald a new age of limitless spending but will see a more prudent approach to PR budgeting by battle-hardened marketing executives. So while we share the hope that this report does perhaps signal the first green shoots of recovery, we'll keep our optimism somewhat in check until the shoots grow and the roots takes hold.

Interesting snippets for agency types from SXSW

Having not had the opportunity to visit SXSW, the eponymous music and media conference held in Austin Texas, I feel one step removed from the buzz that it seems to create. Fortunately some kind and cool people make it their business to walk the talk and share snippets of wisdom to UK bound types like me.

Rebecca Caroe, whose blog Creative Industry Secrets contains many words of wisdom, was extremely active in the US and has supplied a good summary - with links - of items of interest to the marketing services world over here. The following is taken directly from her email blast sent out today:

Firstly - the panel I spoke on was called My boss doesn't get it: championing social media to 'the Man'. With well-known B2B blogger, Peter Kim and the Small World Labs team we had a good discussion including taking questions by Twitter!

If you have an interest in Advertising and Branding - read about how Alex Bogusky from Crispin Porter+Bogusky is introducing new collaborative partnership business models to their repertoire. Chris Heuer speculated on The Future of Advertising and 'hot' agency boss Pete Lerma from Click Here/The Richards Group led a great talk on Models for agency integration http://bit.ly/ysrgJ read this if you are a traditional agency adding digital teams to your offering.

British Filmmaker Jess Search of C4 Britdoc facilitated a discussion on how Brands are driving content for branded entertainment http://bit.ly/vlo1k It seems Advertiser funded programming has come to maturity.

The PR and Marketing communications world came under attack at the session "Are PR agencies a dying breed?" http://bit.ly/oPfFx which was very animated - the common view was that social media is natural territory for PR folk but that we've got to get out and claim it for ourselves. Building online commmunities in B2C and B2B were covered in two separate gigs: Nerd network: building a B2B online community http://bit.ly/uU140 and Building your audience online http://bit.ly/3qVcd8

Design and Digital businesses spoke about pitching and how to win work via the internet. This focused on some of the 'free' pitching websites in the session called Is spec work evil? http://bit.ly/176VLg. Probably the hottest argument of the conference occurred here and the debate continued in the comments on my blog post. Please join in and add your views about whether agencies should do speculative work and free pitching.

Thank you to Rebecca for summarising all of this.

PR Heritage circa 1995

It's probably not appropriate to embed a video promoting my old agency but I can't help but want to share this piece of PR memorabilia. The man responsible, Mr Stuart Handley, has now gone onto bigger things over at Dell but we still doff a cap to his creative genius. The lad showed promise 13 years ago.



And those of us at the 1st World Service held over in the Netherlands at a 'Farm Park' will remember some very very good times. It's alwaysgood to remember the past in these days of trying to pontificate over the future.

Avanti - Quick Update

Pressure works. Not only did I receive a very well thought out and carefully worded letter of apology but also confirmation of a discount on the monthly fee. Now that's all I was looking for in the first case. Why can't customer facing companies realise how really very simple it is to keep people happy.

I may have burned a bridge or two getting to this solution but it was worth it to finally have a working internet connection in the wilds of South Oxfordshire.

Thank you Avanti - you came good in the end!

Shoddy, Unprofessional & Unreliable: Avanti Communications Group plc

It's unfortunate in these days of economic austerity that we have to suffer from corporate incompetance. But that's exactly what my local community has been subjected to courtesy of Avanti Communications Group PLC, a 'provider' of satellite communications services for business, institutional and residential customers. In short, the service failed and was down for nine days during which time home workers, students and house bound residents were without any form of internet access.

Using what social media tools I have at my disposal, I posted a comment and a poll on ISP Review - http://tinyurl.com/bjp7r9; wrote a review on the site - http://tinyurl.com/boztgx; and succeeded in getting a short news article posted: http://tinyurl.com/c55gp3.

But of course there's no substitute for a strongly written letter - if only to vent and get all the frustration off one's chest! Here are some summary words from the letter I have sent to the CEO, Chairman and non-executive director of this AIM listed company:

....... The Hambleden broadband service went down on or around February 20th. I personally rang your support desk on Monday 23rd and spoke to an extremely unhelpful and frankly rude individual. This person offered up no apology nor did she seem to appreciate the problem caused by the system downtime.......

..... calls to your customer support line were met with a pre-recorded message saying all lines were busy. I remained on hold at my expense for more than 10 minutes on several occasions before giving up. I then called your office on the morning of March 2nd asking to speak to either to a support representative, the support manager or yourself. As of 4.00pm, I have received no return call. And my final point is that I called your office main number at 4.15pm on the 2nd only to get a night service message telling me that office hours were 9.00am to 5.30pm......

..... your company’s lack of customer care astonishing and the level of service provision shoddy, unprofessional and wholly unacceptable.....

.... All this could have been avoided if we had been given the full facts, if customer communications had been better handled and if the reasons for the delay in the service being fixed had been honest and true.....

Fortunately it turns out that a non-executive director of the Group company is known to me from a former life so I am hoping this particular issue will be sorted out and that Avanti will recognise it cannot treat its customers with such disdain.

But it is sad, frustrating and time consuming to have to rattle cages in such an agressiove manner to get heard by a company that provides such an important service to my local community.

OK - rant over.